03/24/2010

News / Former West Point Employee Sentenced to 46 Months in Prison for Role in $3 Million Embezzlement Scheme

A Highland Falls, N.Y., woman was sentenced today to 46 months in prison for her role in a scheme to defraud and embezzle funds from the U.S. government by authorizing nearly $3 million in payments from the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., to a bogus corporation she controlled. The guilty plea was announced by Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and Brig. Gen. Colleen McGuire, the Provost Marshal General of the Army and Commanding General of the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command (CID).

Bobbie Cyana Ryan, 51, was also sentenced by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to three years of supervised release following the prison term and was ordered to pay $2,924,966 in restitution to the U.S. Military Academy. Ryan pleaded guilty on Oct. 28, 2009, to a three-count criminal information charging her with devising a scheme to defraud, and transmitting funds in interstate commerce for the purpose of executing the scheme; embezzlement and conversion by Ryan of government funds; and executing a financial transaction with criminally derived funds.

According to court documents filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, Ryan worked in the Information, Education and Technology division in the Office of the Dean at West Point. Ryan was responsible for coordinating information technology training programs for West Point staff. According to court documents, based on irregularities found during a routine audit, U.S. Army investigators discovered that Ryan, acting as the requesting and approving official, used her government purchase card and cards of her unknowing subordinates to authorize approximately $2.9 million in payments to CWG Enterprises. The payments were purportedly for either on-site training instructors or training reference materials when, in fact, no personnel were ever trained and no materials were ever provided.

U.S. Army investigators subsequently discovered that Ryan conducted financial transactions and identified herself as doing business as CWG Enterprises. Ryan used a rented mail box as the company address for CWG Enterprises. Based on false invoices created by Ryan, transfers of government funds were allegedly made from a bank in Washington to a bank account in the name of "Bobbie C. Ryan dba CWG Enterprises" at a bank in New Windsor, N.Y. Once the funds arrived in the purported CWG Enterprises bank account, Ryan withdrew the funds and paid personal and family expenses.

The case was prosecuted by Senior Trial Attorney Andrew Levchuk of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section. The case was investigated by the U.S. Army CID, Hartford Fraud Resident Agency.

http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2010/March/10-crm-298.html

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